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tv   Washington Journal  CSPAN  October 10, 2012 7:00am-9:59am EDT

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attack in benghazi, libya. this morning, live coverage of a debate between scott brown and his challenger allow the death warrant. in about 50 minutes, frank don katella on the mummy-writing campaign. david corn on the hidden video of mitt romney making the 47% comment. health care reporter at lake elkridge on the future of medicare. host: congress is not in a formal session but the house oversight and for remote reform committee will meet today to the to the security situations leading up to the attacks in libya. the state put out a rise, about the attacks that, according to "the washington times" were
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prompted by a car to and from the prophet muhammed. the supreme court is in full swing cases on affirmative action. we have more from adam to tell us about the case. you had a cover story yesterday in "the new york times" featuring abigail fisher. who is she and what is this case about? guest: she is a young white woman from texas, it was turned down, and she was sued, saying her race was held against her. that gives rise to a major affirmative action case question of whether public colleges and universities can take race into account in fashioning their student bodies to make sure there is educational diversity. >> what is the university of system for acceptance?
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guest: bic most kids from the top 10 system, the top 10 percentage of schools in texas. then it is about 75% of the class. the of a 25% is admitted on the way that most universities admit, the look of the entire file, academic credentials, but all other factors, life experiences, rick and assist the city -- race and ethnicity. the last part is what abigail objects to. there is no role for the government to be sort of people by race. >> the university of texas of austin's has what? guest: they say the supreme court has endorsed education and diversity as a compelling goal for the government and an exception to the usual rule that the government should not be classified people by race. it is true, and a 5-4 decision,
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the supreme court said that, but the key vote, sandra day o'connor, has retired, replaced by a more conservative judge, samuel alito, so in that they give us a new result. >> what is the result of this, who will hear it, who will decide? guest: only eight justices will decide. elena kagan is reduced from oregon and the case as a former u.s. solicitor general. it is a good bet the four more conservative justices, if not to strike an entirely, will limit the use of race. the three more liberal ones will go the other way. as usual, anthony kennedy will hold the deciding vote. on the one hand, he has said there have been some positive things about the importance of diversity. on the other hand, he has never voted to make sure that
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affirmative action unfolds. >> is it possible that this could be a 4-4 decision? guest: it is not likely but possible. if so, but would have the effect of an opinion without reasoning, automatically affirming the decision below which had upheld the texas program, meaning a split would mean that affirmative action stays the way we know it today. >> is the university of texas austin the only school that uses the system? guest: this combination of top 10% and the other materials, that is a texas thing. if you are getting the diversity through a race-neutral means, like a top-10 thing, it
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cannot add on this holistic race-conscious review because we are not crazy about using race by the government. if you already have a way to get from here to there, we did not want you to lose the extra fees. times have what are the implications of a decision either way, for fisher or for the university? guest: the broadest implications could be that essentially every college and university in the land would have to redo the way it thinks about how to assemble its student body. it could've all sorts of factors, economic background, suburban or rural, urban, life experience, but it could not look at race. that would also apply to private universities. if you take federal monday, he cannot discriminate on the basis of race. if this is thought to be race discrimination, that could
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affect everyone. on the other hand, if abigail fisher loses, or if the court goes off on technical grounds, saying she does not have standing, it would be a bit of a false alarm and would leave everything we know in place. host: this is not the first of the interests of the of texas austin has gone of the issue has come up. years ago, in 1950, the diversity of texas, which had affirmative flee been discriminating -- not against black people in the civil-rights era -- was made to end a black student, sort of in the brown versus board of education era. not directly relevant to the case, but it casts a shadow, and reminds us, in living memory, the that the state's affirmative it discriminated against a disadvantaged minority in the
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most pernicious way. the question is, how we move forward it enough away from those days for their not to be some effort at the mediation and an effort to make sure all aspects of society are represented in our student bodies. host: who are the players in this case? guest: fisher is supported by a small group from the project of fair representation, which has in many settings, including voting rights, taking conservative positions. on the university of texas aside is an avalanche of friend-of- the-court briefs. there are some on the other side, but for that way by a friend-of-the-court briefs, supported the diversity, for all aspects of society, including corporations and military leaders to take the view that it is important for them to be able
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to have leaders from all aspects of society and to make sure that young people can model themselves on people who look like them as they try to find their way in society. host: explaining the supreme court's arguments today on this affirmative action case. what else is the court going to be looking at today? guest: there is a second case today but it will not be of interest to anyone. it involves whether you can deport somebody for possessing a small amount of marijuana. that will be the 10:00 argument. people will sit through that in anticipation of the main event at 11:00, where we will hear arguments. so far, thathost: what is cominr the court?
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guest: the corps will be looking at the same sex marriage case. in all likelihood, they will say yes, they will hear a same-sex marriage case. host: adam liptak of "the new york times," thank you for your time. and those oral arguments today before the court's audio, released friday after 1:00 p.m. look for coverage of those oral arguments. go to c-span.org for more details if you are interested in listening in on the back-and- fourth of that case. this morning we want to get to your take on the affirmative action case. what are your thoughts on the case, affirmative-action?
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host: we have a special line for college students -- 202-585- 3883. you can twitter comments to us. post comments on facebook. we will try to read a few of those in the first 45 minutes as well. here is "the wall street journal" story -- excuse me, "the washington times" story this morning. the court's consideration of racial quotas. case.talk about the 2003 in 2007, the court struck down a seattle system that divided the city's elementary school students equally along racial lines. john roberts wrote the majority opinion and called it extreme.
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elena kagan recused herself from the case, working on it as a lower level as the obama administration solicitor general. the key could lie again with justice anthony kennedy. sandy, columbus, ohio, a democrat there. what do you think? gcaller: first of all, i would like to hear the make up and see the makeup of the total top-10 that were expected when she was denied because we so often have not only racial problems, we can have gender problems as well. so before we get into affirmative-action and how we as black people or white people are the minorities, we are not able
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to have a fair shot into getting that college. also, listening to the case, they may need to reform the age of how they except college students. host: here is a graphic that was in "the wall street journal" yesterday. the racial-ethnic makeup of the university of texas undergraduate student body. can see the make up there in 2010. 2007, over 50% white. you can see that number going down in 2011, less than 50% white, asians, hispanics, blacks making up more of the student body. guest: i see. host: union bridge, maryland, republican, keith. good morning. caller: i joined the conversation late this morning, and i'm curious if they explain
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the 10% -- my understanding is it applies to teach high-school or district as opposed to the state, whereas in the past it was 10% of the highest ranked students in the state. now they're taking 10% of the individual high school students in each district or school. host: every school in texas. caller: what that does, you may be at 11% or 12% range in your school and not qualify, but you might have been in the 3%, 4%, 5% in the entire state and have more than qualified. but because they changed the rules that every school rather than the state, that denies bright students of any race the opportunity to get into the state, simply because they were very smart in their particular state but not in their particular school. host: this is the washington times, what they write.
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"the remaining spots are awarded based on a variety of factors, including the university possible effort to achieve diversity on its campuses. host: what do you think? caller: if she was in the top three or four% of the state, but unfortunately in the top 11 or 12% of her school or district, she is being discriminated against simply by that vote. host: proponents say that is a racial consideration. "rigidly those from poor school systems. many argue that they help -- particularly those from poor school systems." caller: i guess it goes back to the case that was deemed moot anyway. the fact of the matter is, when
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you are laying on that table and you are about to have brain surgery, it does not matter what color the surgeon is. i do not care if he or she is black, white. it makes no difference. they were granted admission to school -- if they were granted admission to school based on skin color, that in itself is discriminatory. host: good morning. caller: i hope that with affirmative-action the supreme court does not intervene because affirmative action has been used basically by mostly white women versus african-american women for jobs and positions in education. i think this is the same being used in that respect. host: ok. the hampshire, democratic corporate good morning, mallory. what are your thoughts?
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caller: i think it is unfortunate that today we need this kind of rule. look at the unemployment rate. it is higher among blacks than it is quite. so there is still discrimination going on in this country, and we still need this law. that is really unfortunate. host: willie in jacksonville, florida. independent. caller: good morning. with the lady that just called -- my thing is there must not be enough highly educated black institutions for black folks to keep saying i have to go to harvard to get my education, to stanford or something like that. i just do not understand. being black, we do not have the
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professors, at least the same criteria. to me, it seems like we are no further than we were before. we're still trying to get an education at your school. 500 years, and we do not have no qualified school on the same level with these schools and professors that is on the same level? see what i'm saying? host: here is bill powers, the 28 president of the university of texas, writing in today's "wall street journal." "history repeats itself wednesday in an eerie but ironic way."
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host: in the opinion in 2003 that adam liptak referred to, that justice sandra day o'connor wrote that the constitution -- host: that is sandra day o'connor, writing back in 2003.
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from rockville center, new york, a republican. go ahead. caller: i see that it is a very important role here. i want to see what my party representatives will do. right now mitt romney, they are talking about the 47%. what can they do for us? also, my other question, what room do they have to enter schools like that? host: talking about 47% of americans. david corn is out with a new ebook about that issue.
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think about questions, comments you want answered. you can send them to our facebook page. we're taking them there as well. here is the arizona republic. "battle down to 9 selina states." 93 -- 90 -- 9 swing states." both candidates are concentrating their precious time and money in the handful of states that still seem to be competitive peridots are ohio, florida, nevada, colorado, new hampshire, and wisconsin. that is according to arizona republican. other papers have similar stories. we will do a series later in the month on those battleground states, taking a closer into what makes them a battleground state and the status of the race in those states. that is leading up to the
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election later on in october. more stories, "wall street journal," frontpage -- host: "the baltimore sun" this morning -- ohio was the 15th stop today, his 30th trip to the state of ohio since taking office, his 15th in this year alone. both candidates campaigning in ohio. as we said, the polls showing the race tightening after the debate. here is the "new york post, showing that nationwide romney is up 45%. obama up 47%. here you can see -- mitt romney is up 49%, obama up 47%. obama has a four-point lead up
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over romney, the cnn poll. the polls tightening across the country in those battleground states. florida, a democratic caller. alan, we will go back to our topic. caller: from the 2003 opinion, justice o'connor, it encapsulates it. the constitution does not prevent consideration of race. i believe they also said in that opinion that race could not be the primary factor, it could be one of many factors. i think that -- i would hope there could be a way where -- there were people that were more qualified. i think that procedure could be
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discriminatory, but i would hope that we would find a way to say that this procedure, as it is being applied, does violate the constitution, but not strike down all programs designed to include racial equality and be a diverse student body. host: why this system specifically? do you think it goes a step farther? it takes the top 10 from each school, and then for the next round of admissions it includes race at that point as well? caller: i think i agree with what the gentlemen said before about -- what the gentleman said before. you have a higher grade in the state but not in the school. i tune did kind of late so i did not get the specifics of the case, but i am not -- i turned
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in kind of late so i did not get the specifics of the case. other things, the recommendation, grades, whatever. race is one of many factors. but i think if it gets to the point where if what she is saying is true, that she was admitted, she was not admitted over people who were of a different race, she had better grades, i think that goes a step too far. host: apparently she just missed being in the top 10 of her school by three or four people. caller: i would hope the report would do -- maybe strike down the program as applied, but they could legitimately say this procedure that tech ut has is incompatible with the decision
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from 2003 because it does not -- because it is using race as the primary thing it seems like. host: got your point. robert, miami, florida, independent. good morning. caller: i am kind of troubled and confused. how does she know that she was the person in that particular law school? i continue to hear these arguments that say -- i think one of the discussions that took place, they were bumped because so-called blacks took their place and were unqualified. that there are other components for law schools, not just grades, but other things
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that are considered. consideration of all that. you know, these affirmative action things came out of -- when blacks applied to these schools, it was understood that if you were black, you would not be admitted because you were black. no blacks. there is a history of discrimination in these particular programs. i find it difficult to believe that this person can legitimately say that they were bumped because she was white. how do you know that? host: robert, it sounds like you will be interested in listening to the oral arguments. the audio will be released friday after 1:00 p.m., covered on c-span.org, in case you want to hear what sort of questions
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the justices asked of those arguing this case, and then to get some idea of how they might rule on this. portsmouth, rhode island, democratic caller. joe, go ahead. caller: i went through the court cases, the supreme court cases, brown vs. the board of education, etc. i want to make a personal comment. i took the s.a.t.'s with a black friend of mine from massachusetts, a basketball player who went on to play for jacksonville in the n.c.a.a. tournament. we both moaned and groaned over the s.a.t.'s. i think it was discrimination against both of us because we were from a poor neighborhood and never got the opportunity. a lot of the problem is the
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scholastic aptitude testing to get into college, which is discriminating both against poor white and black men, and women also. also, i think you cannot disregard women from discrimination in the past and what blacks went through in this country. i took a broader brush and took every minority -- they would take asians and everything into consideration, and this left the black man out of the picture to a large extent. i also feel that they should take more white men from neighborhoods that are disadvantaged and give them a shot. but there should be separate programs in the colleges and universities for situations like that. host: that is jerry from portsmouth, rhode island. a comment from facebook --
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host: those are some of the comments from facebook.com. on to some other news. we will continue talking about the supreme court hearing in this case. here is the front page of "the washington post" this morning. clinton was among the first obama administration officials to publicly condemn the attack and warned the deaths of ambassador christopher stevens and three other americans." host: "and the administration
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account of the attack. the state department instead will send a trusted to rid diplomat along with three security officials. had the hearing, as they depart officials provide new details about the attack while asserting there was no way to predict or prevent the sustained assault." as we read from "the washington times," they took away any claims that this attack was due to protests about that video. that is a front page of "washington times." they also include a timeline, a brief chronology about the aftermath of the attack on the u.s. consulate in libya, if you are interested in that, in "the washington times." david miliband writes this morning --
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host: that is some background for you before you tune in to the hearing. our coverage at noon today, that is when the hearing begins. chad, silver spring, maryland, independent. thanks for waiting, and what are your thoughts on this? caller: good morning, c-span. my main comments is that the
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whole purpose of affirmative action was to write a discriminatory policy over the course of history in the united states. but it has not been applied appropriately. it seems to me it would be more fair if it was applied based on your income level, so that i guess the whole purpose would be so that people can have social mobility. but if it is not applied to people who come from low-income homes who do not necessarily have the same opportunity that maybe people have in the middle class or upper class homes, i just don't think -- i think that creates bitterness from many people. i feel like -- i guess the main
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issue with affirmative action right now is it has had some unintended consequences. for instance, at a lot of universities, people of african descent, people who are immigrants from africa who have parents who came here who have higher education degrees -- doctors -- they are getting preference over african- americans in selection in schools. that i think is an unintended consequence, if it went across income levels it would be fixed. host: what is your name, caller? caller: kieran. i think affirmative action is a remedy. what i mean by remedy, it is to right a wrong from the past. for generations i have been
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crossing over and you stop me from doing that, it is an easement that you get. after the court says you are -- you cannot say he is trespassing, it is a remedy. networking is how most of us get our jobs in a country where people are separated in neighborhoods and communities. whites and blacks did not in iraq. they did not know each other. look at your facebook friends. -- whites and blacks did not interact. they did not know each other. look at your facebook friends. how different are they from you? it is a way of giving opportunity to people who are different from you. what i do not understand about these cases, i do not understand how she knows for a fact that she was the lowest scoring white person, and the minority she is claiming was lower than her.
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i am sure there were other people just like her who got into that university. and white people have affirmative-action, too. it is called legacy. legacy says that if your parents or your uncle or family member went to the school, you get points for that. if the school discriminated in the past, i do not see how that is not affirmative action for white people. host: we will keep doing phone calls for about 10 more minutes on this. for campaign 2012, here is "the new york times." h code that is what seasons debate coachers --
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host: that is what seasoned debate coachers tell the candidates. it goes on to say that major networks, cable news outlets abc, cbs, nbc, cnn, all planned to use split screens regularly. fox said it would even continue using it more than it did in the presidential debate. in denver, some of the candidates have tried in the past with limited success. using reaction shots of candidates. aides to bill clinton -- aides to bill clinton and president george bush in 1992 when as far to write into their debate contract that television networks could not broadcast such images. the campaigns of senator john kerry and president george w. bush -- the non-partisan
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organization that oversees the production, while the submission has final say over where those cameras are in place, they do not control the mechanics of filling camera angles or rigid of filming camera angles." that work is left solely to the discretion of the network pool producing the broadcast. last week it was abc, on thursday it was cnn." c-span was the first to start using split screens in 2000 when al gore was debating george w. bush, and the article in "the new york times" notes -- "the split screen has become such a modern media phenomenon, political scientists have studied it. they say that the study concluded that the debate split screen reinforces negative
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indications." we will continue to have coverage on c-span. on c-span2 you can watch a different take, and you can get the pool feed, the head-on shot of whoever is talking. you can decide how you want to watch the debates. c-span, only the split screen the entire time. c-span2, only the head-on shot. you can go to c-span.org to follow the debate. can tweak about it, follow those tweeting about it. -- you can tweet about it, follows tweeting about it. good morning. caller: thank you. the whole concept of the affirmative action, especially for america, which is a pretty just society overall -- we are
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more than 30 years away from civil rights -- people do exploit it. once you set up those kinds of subsidies, not everyone can apply. in this country, the major subsidies are gotten by the biggest companies, not the small farmers. i am neither black nor white. i have a ph.d. from johns hopkins, but i can get employment in my field, african history, because most universities silently prefer either a woman or an african- american candidate to teach my expertise. so affirmative action is not going to be the justice we seek. it is time to stop it because people like myself can never benefit from that system. it is always going to be a matter of black and white, and i basically agree with the previous caller, chad, that it
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should be in come-based. if you already have these subsidies, do not keep milking the cash cow. you have to keep talking about past injustices. this country is the first on the planet earth. it is time to quit subsidizing people who are just too smart to milk the system. host: what is your background? caller: i am asian. i'm a historian but cannot get full time employment in my field, especially because it is african history. host: karen in houston, texas. good morning. democratic column. caller: my daughters went to the university of texas in austin, before the 10% rule. the school district is very diverse, across pretty much the state demographics. the high schools that my daughter went to was very
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competitive. at least my younger daughter, i do not know if she would have been considered in the top 10%. many students who are very strong students, at competitive high schools, sadly cannot get into the university of texas. i agree with the previous callers who raised the question of the impact of the low socioeconomic status. i would also add that i think that some of the schools in texas, particularly in high- poverty areas, probably do not produce strong students, so they may be are guaranteed positions but have trouble keeping up at universities. host: barbara tweets --
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front page of "the washington post" -- "gang of 86 alternative plans." senate -- gang of eight sikhs alternative plans." at stake is not only the size of the tax burden on ordinary americans, but also the size of the economic mess that the next administration will inherit. unless congress can reach an agreement, tax bills will automatically increase for nearly 90% of americans next year. we covered senator schumer's event yesterday. here is what he had to say. >> it is an alluring prospect to cut taxes on the wealthiest
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people, reduce the deficit, but the mass dictates you cannot have it all. the arithmetic, as president clinton said. the reality is, any path forward that promises to cut rates will fail to reduce the deficit or fail to protect the middle class from a net tax increase. you can at most achieve two of these goals. anyone pushing a plan purporting to accomplish all three is not telling the truth. the sooner we are honest with ourselves about this, the easier it will be to negotiate an actual compromise on taxes and on deficit reduction. host: senator charles schumer, democrat, new york, yesterday, talking about these negotiations on the so-called fiscal cliff. the gang of eight is trying to
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come up with some alternative plan to address that. we're spending a couple more minutes here, one or two more phone calls about the supreme court hearing the affirmative action case. they are going to release the audio of the arguments on friday after 1:00 p.m. we will put that up and air that on friday. go to c-span.org for more details about when all that will take place. i want to let you know about the story on jack welch, the former chairman of general electric appeared he was dropped as a columnist from "fortune" magazine and reuters.com after he tweeted out questions in a tweet, the bureau of labor statistics job numbers, the 7.8% unemployment numbers. here he is in "the wall street
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journal," "i was right about that strange jobs report." ohio, independent, john, good morning to you. caller: good morning. glad to join your conversation. about affirmative action, i think we are really at a stage where we should basically say that everyone is equal. if there is discrimination, we should take aggressive action, but if we just treat everyone equally, i think that we would make better progress achieving equality. ho: ok. john from ohio, an independent there. another story, from "the new york times." "u.s. military sent to jordan on syria crisis."
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mostly this military unit is helping jordan handle the estimated at 180,000 syrian refugees who have crossed the border and are severely straining the country's resources. foreign policy is to be a topic in the debate between vice president joe biden and vice presidential candidate paul ryan. the debate begins at 9:00 p.m. eastern time on thursday, and we will read air the debate after we take your phone calls and -- we will re-air the debate after we take your phone calls and comments. up next, we will talk with frank donna kelley on campaign -- frank donatelli on campaign
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2012. julie, this is not the first time that the candidates for that seat will be squaring off. there are two debates under their belts. where do things stand? guest: the first two debates in this race have been pretty it and fall, a pretty nasty the dates. pretty positive up until september. there is the ban on outside grant adds -- on outside ads. until september, there were no negative adds for either candidate as well, but over the last couple of months it has taken a trend toward the negative. in the first two debates, scott brown has gone after his democratic opponent, elizabeth warren, on her claim that she
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has native american ancestry, trying to imply that she may be benefited and got teaching jobs, got into schools based on her claims of being a minority. he has gone after her on her legal work, particularly on behalf of travelers insurance statements. elizabeth warren has also been hitting scott brown on basically the massachusetts voters want a democratic controlled senate. he is a republican, a well- liked guy. people consider him an independent guy, but still, a vote for scott brown is a vote for a republican controlled senate. host: what should viewers watched in their debate? we will cover it tonight. guest: it is a safe bet that scott brown will attack
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elizabeth warren on this travelers insurance thing. her campaign's central theme is that she is fighting for the middle class, for the little guy. what he is trying to do with this is say that she works at a state corp., travelers insurance, and that her work prevented victims from getting the pay out that they deserved. that her work was to benefit the victims, but he is saying that she muddied the waters on that. i assume that he will attack on it again. we can probably assume the native american thing will come up as well. you know, from elizabeth warren's perspective, i think tying him to mitt romney, his support of mitt romney, and he
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is unpopular in massachusetts, so she will try to remind viewers that he does not support president obama. in the last debate, scott brown would not commit to supporting mitch mcconnell as senate majority leader. she will try to tie him to the republican party. in the last the great -- in the last debate with scott brown, he said that justice scalia was a model for him, and elizabeth warren hit him hard on that. scott brown has said that the conservative is an ideal justice for him. host: why are people paying attention to this race? guest: this is one of the
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closest races in the country. scott brown is one of two vulnerable republican incumbent senators, up for reelection this year. the other one being dean heller in nevada. scott brown has been ahead in some. we've kind of seen consistently her being a few points up over scott brown. there was one poll out this week that was considered encouraging for brown, showing him up again, possibly, and apparently as a result of mitt romney's debate performance. mitt romney, being a former governor of massachusetts, is very unpopular in the state. most polls have showed him lagging obama by a huge margin. this poll shows up he has made some ground -- this poll shows
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he has made up some ground against obama. we can expect this race to be one of the closest in the country. host: we will talk about the senate race later with you in the program. again, our coverage tonight of the senate debate, 7:00 p.m. eastern time. senator scott brown, republican, faces off with elizabeth warren, the democratic challenger, at 7:00 p.m. eastern time, 4:00 p.m. if you are on the west coast. gopac, campaign 2012. let's begin with ohio. "the washington post," "obama and romney running hard in ohio." why ohio? caller: a republican has never won the white house without winning ohio.
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things never change. whenever a republican is our nominee for president, we have to win or ohio. i think governor romney is going to win ohio this year. host: both of them have been there numerous times to the president just 15 times this year, 30 times since he has taken office. tell me about ohio. caller: ohio is a class a purple state, well balanced between democrats and republicans, a microcosm of the country in the sense that you have blue caller workers, you have -- however, the state is older, probably more caucasian, a little white r. it has really been hit by the economic downturn, especially heavy industry. both sides think they have a real shot at winning the state. i think in the early going, the obama campaign scored well on their class warfare argument.
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that is one of the staples of the obama campaign, "you are not doing well because this guy in his career is doing too well." now i think the public is beginning to understand that it is the bad economic policies of this administration that is causing everybody to do less well than they should. so i think now mitt romney and paul ryan are starting to pick up. host: what kind of ground game do you need to pick up ohio? guest: it is tougher for republicans because our vote is scattered in the rural counties, northwest ohio, eastern ohio now becoming more republican. it used to be more democratic. the democratic vote is concentrated in the northeast, i hope the county, in the cities of columbus and cincinnati. so they have an easier time. but led by the republican national committee, the ground
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game is very good this year. as far as gopac is concerned, we support state and local candidates. we're targeting state and local candidates in swing districts to turn out the votes from the bottom up, not the top down. host: explain that a little bit more. guest: we support the next generation of republicans, and these are republicans running primarily at the state and legislative level. we look for individuals that have leadership capabilities who someday might be speaker of the house or who would run for congress or senate sunday. those of the people we try to target. but this year in the presidential environment, we're working hard to have those candidates run strong campaigns. there's only so much that a presidential campaign can do in terms of contacting households across the country.
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if you have a strong legislative candidate -- state, said that, whatever -- they're the ones who knock on the doors. -- state, senate, whatever -- they are the ones who knock on the doors. host: raising money for these candidates? guest: yes, we raise money, we give them services, we train them. you want to run the best possible campaign, so not only do they win, but they maximize turnout. host: what is the core mission like between gopac -- what is the coordination like between gopac and -- guest: we do not coordinate. host: just take a look here for our viewers, green is what you raised, red is what you spent over different cycles. if you look at 2012, the numbers look low compared to 2008.
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are you having trouble fund- raising because of super pac influence? how is campaign 2012 different than 2008? guest: now fund our organization with donations, as opposed to -- we are spending more this time that we have in the past. we are focusing it on the key states, including ohio. host: so we will see the bars go up at the end? guest: you'll see our net go up, not our bros. it does not help to have a huge gross income if it all goes back into fund-raising. host: why does it matter? why do the vice presidential debates matter? guest: historically they do not matter that much, although we have had some good lines in past vice president of debates, and
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there was a lot of interest in the vice-presidential debate four years ago because of sarah palin. because this time -- but i think this time because the first debate went so well for governor romney, i think this is an opportunity for vice-president to have another go at it. and i know that the democrats desperately want to change the conversation, so i would expect the vice-president to come out pretty aggressive. the interesting thing about this debate is the difference in style. you might term this mr. cool versus joe the volcano. paul ryan, a very surreal guy, i think he will talk a lot about our economic philosophy and how it can make life better for the average american. and, you never know what the vice president is going to say. he will try to be very aggressive. i think mr. ryan will do a good job. host: our coverage begins at
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7:00 p.m. eastern time to read the debates at 9:00 on thursday. then you look at is your reaction at 10:30 p.m. eastern time. on c-span, c-span radio, and c- span.org, live on thursday. here is what the joe biden camp is saying about paul ryan. "congressman ryan has a choice to make thursday, either stand behind the extreme positions he has been the face of for years, and that governor romney has fully embrace like turning medicare into a voucher program and cutting taxes for the wealthiest few at the expense of the middle class, or deny their existence as governor romney did in last week's did a." guest: at least the republicans are trying to solve a problem. here is what the vice president refuses to acknowledge -- medicare is going broke. that's not what i say, that is what the medicare and social
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security trustees that are responsible for the program are saying. medicare is going to go broke in eight years unless something is done. so mr. ryan and the house republicans stepped up and put a solution for word. the solution is to preserve medicare so it is available for future generations. you may not like that, joe biden may not like that, but he has proposed nothing. obama has proposed nothing.
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caller: mr. donatelli i heard you say president obama is doing class warfare. that is totally untrue you, republicans have done it because you have never looked for the middle class or the poor. that's one point. the second point where you said no one voted on the budget. it was 99-0. you know the reason why that was? because the republicans put gimmicks in here. if you're going to be honest, which your party has trouble doing, like mitt romney did last wednesday, told nothing but lies, let's be honest. the reason why there was a zero vote is because the republicans
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put gimmicks in there. we're not stupid as you think we are. guest: thank you for your question. the 99-0 vote was in the democratic controlled senate. all the democratic senators voted no. it's commentary how unserious this administration takes deficit reduction. as far as helping the poor concerned ma'am, if you've had 8% unemployment for four years, 47 million people on food stamps that's the worst thing you can do for the poor is to have no economic growth and a terrible economy. the way you get the poor off the rolls is to get them a job. this president has done a terrible job in that regard.
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host: next phone call john republican. caller: he says, there's no reason to build roads in the suburbs when they put it in the cities. guest: sir, i'm not aware of that. you maybe referring to oneqrnsñf the transportation bills that passed. you confess that the funding mechanisms for those projects are very complicated. i'm not sure that i can be much help in your question. host: cleveland, ohio,
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democratic caller. caller: all you republicans keep saying the obama economic program didn't work. what happened, kennedy died, there was no control of the senate, you republicans filibusterrered 275 bills in 2010. they effectively killed the total obama economic agenda. we've had over the last four years the republican austerity. the vets jobs bill was filibusterrered. four republicans crafted the bill and when the bill came to the floor, 58 members on the floor, 42 republicans voted against it. the bill was killed. they did that 276 times in 2010, it was your agenda. you blame obama for your obstructionism. how do you explain 276 filibuster with a straight face sir. guest: i'm smiling. the problem with the economy is
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not because of the republican house thwarted obama in 2011 and this year. it was the democratic congress in 2009 and 2010 and gave him everything he wanted. stimulus, you remember that? he said if we passed the stimulus that unemployment would not go above 8%? it's been above 8% for three years until this past month. obamacare, something that's going to add more regulation and make it more difficult for businesses to create jobs. look, this guy has been president for four years. things aren't any better than when he took over. unemployment is still high, we've had no economic growth and we've had four consecutive years of trillion dollars deficits. to say that's the fault of the republican house in the last year in a half, doesn't make any sense. there's a record there.
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it's a bad record and that's why this president wants to talk about everything and anything except his economic progress over the last four years. host: keith on twitter says why is gop shutting down early voting? are you afraid of losing is more people out? guest: we're participating in early voting. i don't particularly like early voting but it a fact of life now. it's the law in many states. republicans finally are beginning to participate in the process. we're not down a large number of votes going into election day. host: here's a little side story about ohio. the ohio secretary of state john husted is asking the supreme court -- republicans said
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tuesday the state official not federal judges should decide the time for early voting. guest: that's a state law in ohio. i confess i don't know all the specifics about it. there's obviously a lot of questions on a state by state basis of when the polls should be open under what circumstances and so forth and so on. but look, there's going to be adequate opportunity for everyone that wants to vote to participate and we're for the highest vote possible. we want everybody to show up and participate in this very important election. host: ohio, one of the battleground states. here's the arizona republic museum this morning. the battle is down to nine. ohio, iowa, virginia, north carolina, new hampshire. what's your take on that? guest: those are good states. the hope is michigan might be playing out. there's a pretty good list.
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virtually in all of those states, we're within a few points. that's where you see most of the candidates going. host: most of the money too. the arizona republic saying 92% ad spending concentrate on those nine states. independent from flint, michigan, brad you're next. caller: president obama in my opinion, he's done the best he can. i see that the republicans has done nothing to do everything that they say they're going to do. they say they want to create jobs and they are not helping the man create jobs or the democrats. for mitt romney to speak about a tax cut for himself, a pay raise for himself, it sounds ludicrous. i respect obama who say you can
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tax me. you take all the money out of flint, you don't have any police officers to help protect the citizens. what's your take on that? guest: well, sir, i would say that the record speaks for itself. he's been president for four years. we still have fewer jobs in america than we did at the beginning of this recession. this is the worst economic -- we've had an economic recovery going for three years. it's the weakest recovery we've had. one way to get liberals upset is to compare the obama recovery with the reagan recovery. to compare the two the economic proposals and the economic plans of both presidents were totally different. reagan cut taxes and he cut spending and regulation. obama increased all three. the results are there for
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everybody to see. by the best circumstances, about four million jobs have been created since the recession ended in 2009. by contrast in the first year in a half, the first two years of the reagan recovery, the number was nine million. by the end of second reagan term, it was 16 million on a much smaller base of jobs. i think that's about as good a laboratory and experiment as we can have in terms of which policies actually create jobs. does anybody really think that in the next term if he's reelected, we're going to do much better than we did in the first four years given what this president is saying in this campaign? i don't think so, most of the american people feel like we tried that.
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host: chairman of gopac and democratic chairman and assistant to president ronald reagan, deputy assistant to the president at the white house, served on the white house chief of staff . talk about debate negotiations. how do you negotiate the debates? what are the terms that you're looking at? guest: this has become much more sophisticated over the years. when we negotiated the 1984 debates, the entire agreement was encompassed in three pages and now they go on for pages and pages. take into consideration every single requirement as far as lighting and staging and how you're going to address both candidates. do you call him mr. president or
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m r. obama. the color of the set all of those sorts of things. it's become a lot more complicated over the years. now, the commission on presidential debates, who i think do a very good job, they get heavily involved now too. they're involved in the process. host: what do you think lot was made of the moderator from the first debate, jim lehrer. how he moderated the debate? the commission came out with a statement days after said he did what he asked him to do. these were the ground rules and he did that. guest: i personally thought lehrer did a very good job. the complaints about past debates was they were too structured. it was basically a joint press conference. i think you had a real interaction the other night. they went back and forth. if the candidates want to talk to each other and there's some artificial deadline, i like to hear the candidates talk to each
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other. i i thought lehrer did the right thing. the more candidate interaction, the better it is for the american public. so much what we hear today, 30 second commercials, we're sick of those, this is the one opportunity for the american people to see the candidates somewhat unscripted talking to morning. host: the "new york times" is talking about the networks liking the split screen and tried in the past tried to negotiate and networks take that reaction shot. guest: that was one of the things we would negotiate. you couldn't have reaction shots because you're not really on camera and somebody says something and the other candidate kind of rolls their eyes. you remember al gore and george bush, that's what got al gore into all that trouble. he kept sighing when george bush
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will say something. candidates have sort of lost that now. it's not a bad thing. it's not too much to ask candidates to stand up there for an hour in a half somewhat unscripted, having to respond to questions and not necessarily having to go beyond the talking points. host: you refer to the 2000 debate between george w. bush and al gore. that's when c-span started the split screen. i think we were the first to have a split screen, have that so viewers could see both candidates at the same time. the story today talks about how the networks are all using that as their coverage and just a note for our viewers, our debate coverage includes c-span 1, which is a split screen so you can see both candidates. then on c-span 2, is the pool feed that head on shots whoever is speaking, that's who you would see on c-span 2.
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you can decide how you want to watch the debate. back to phone calls, democratic caller join us. roger. caller: this is the thing about democrats. we are sick and tired of the republicans lying through their teeth about everything that is going on. now, you talking about the four years that the president he hasn't done anything. what jobs have mitt romney created in the last four years? you hear nothing about that. you got where he's massachusetts. he's not even liked there. now you go back -- i can take four years -- i can take one week and tear a house down. i'm a home improvement contractor, it will take me 3-6 months to put that house back together. how you sit there and say you giving the president four years to repair a state and to repair
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a country. you will give him four years to repair a country where it took eight years to tear it down? guest: i think four years is a reasonable time to test whether or not a president programs work or not. the facts are all are that this is the worst recovery in the last three years that we've had. we've had a lot of recoveries in the post world war ii era. this one is the worst. we have to ask why is that. i think it's because this administration is in love with government. they are in love specifically with the federal government. this president really believes that government investing in the energy industry is better than letting the oil and gas and the private sector develop our oil and gas reserves and our energy reserves. the facts speak otherwise.
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solyndra and he spent an enormous amount of money on so called green projects and they haven't produced anything. thank goodness, the oil and gas industry and the coal industry and private sector are the ones creating jobs. the president himself said when he was first elected that he's going to be judged in four years on his economic performance. that's really all that we're doing. host: chris martin on twitter wants to add this. mr.donatelli what is the performance between president obama economic stimulus between president bush? guest: the bush economic stimulus weren't well either. if you talk about his it stimulus late in his presidency in 2007 and 2008. that didn't work well either. what did work very well are the bush tax cuts in 2001 and 2003. which took a shaky economy because of 9/11 and the wars we were getting into and really stabilized it. that's an example, i think,
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supply side tax cuts are an example if you want to use the word stimulus, that can grow an economy because is incentivize the private sector. the problem with stimulus tends to be we wind up spending more money on government programs. guest: massachusetts, wayne is a republican. good morning. caller: good morning folks. i really enjoy the program. i wish i had an hour to respond to the last caller. romney is liked here in massachusetts. he did something obama will never do. he worked with 87% democratic legislative. real quick, whenever i hear jobs bills, here in massachusetts, they've had stimulus money for 3.5 hours. i can't tell you the countless hours i've been waiting in traffic for stupid highway projects. they're working on the same spots for 3.5 years. it's total miscalculation of money.
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real quick, if president obama cared about this country, about the middle class, about poor people, one thing that effects every president in this country it's not healthcare, it's not foreign policy, it's not gay rights, it's not politics, it's the price of gasoline. i spend $2500 more per year, which could be going into my local economy on gas. i spend $5000 a year on gas as it double the price. if he care about anything in this country, le will do something to create a more friendly environment to get the price. gas down. host: wayne before you go here is a tweet from roger smith. i heard someone say governor romney didn't say salary in pay and work for free. is that true as governor? caller: i believe it is. if you look into mitt romney last year, $3 million and $4 million in donations.
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when his father passed away, tens if not hundreds of millions of dollars was all donated. mitt romney gave it away every penny he has now he earned on his own. judge someone not by what they are speaking of but their actions. he's created jobs. mitt romney is a good man. guest: first of all, the gentleman is correct, all governor romney wealth is money he earned and it is not money he inherited. secondly the gentleman is correct. the problem with jobs bill, they tend to focus on government. government programs are not self-sustaining. the only way that you can create lasting and meaningful jobs is to grow the private sector. the third thing, one thing that governor romney really scored well on in the debate was his statement that he had worked with the democratic legislature in massachusetts. let's face it, whether romney is
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elected or obama, you're going to have to deal with a congress that's going to have both republicans and democrats. we're going to have to do something to come together to avoid this fiscal cliff that we are facing. we're facing dire circumstances. the economy is limping along as it is and we cannot absorb the tax increases that are scheduled to begin january 1. we have to do something about that. that means republicans and democrats working together for the good of the country. what romney has shown he has an ability to do that. host: gas prices dropped less than a penny in california. that caller mentioned gas prices less than penny. average prices in orange county actually fell tenth of a cent $4.69. still about 51 cents more than last week and 91 cents more than
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a year ago. georgia, an independent john, go ahead. caller: something that is irritating. i think they really do a disservice in public when they kind of manipulate the ignorance of the political process. one example is when your guest said that the senate voted down an economic bill 90-0. when there's some nuances to that. when you attach abortion legislation to a veteran jobs bull. you will get that result. we need to be more clear when we make statements. not everybody understand what's going on as opposed to trying to score political points.
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guest: i appreciate what the gentleman had to say. there was no amendment or rider on this approach. every year the house and senate has to adopt a budget resolution. what that is suppose to do is set the basic parameters of government spending and taxes when you do the appropriations bill, they suppose to fit under that umbrella. the house in the last two years have passed a budget. the senate has not passed a budget. there was no plan to get a majority of support in the senate. of course the president has to submit a budget. every year he does, every year it goes before the senate and the senate votes up or down. there was no killer amendment here, it was the obama-biden budget that they submitted and it was voted down republicans and democrats voted against it because they doesn't it was serious. host: massachusetts caller says
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this. president of the united states is not responsible for gas prices. mitt inherited one million and donated it to taxes. guest: he inherited money from his family and he proceeded to give it away to charity. i don't know why we could criticize him for that. that would be a good thing. host: another story about governor romney in the "new york times." romney pledges to keep deductions for mortgage it is he's president. democratic caller michael. caller: i guess the one issue i can't understand is why the republicans and businesses who constantly complain about uncertainty when providing health insurance. the irony to me in the past healthcare was used to track good workers and i feel it's being used to alienate the
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workforce. why do they even want to be responsible for it in the first place? thank you very much. guest: i appreciate the call. i guess the reason we get our healthcare through employer is historic reasons. going back to world war ii, they had a wage controls on businesses and so they started offering fringe benefits instead. that has stopped. it not the best way to do things but that's where we are now. a better way to do it to be able to purchase their own insurance and carry with them from job to job. especially now we move around so much. this is the situation we have. healthcare is a big cost to most businesses. in this very tight economic environment, you're looking to save money. the problem with obamacare is it mandates business provide a certain level of benefits which
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may or may not fit the cost structure of that business. the fear is that businesses will dump individual who had been getting their healthcare through the business, dump them into the exchanges that are created by obamacare and just pay the fine. you have people that were looking forward to keeping their own policy now have to get their own policy in the exchange. it's a question of economics. do you want to retain good workers and pay workers a fair wage? absolutely. but you also have to make the books balance too. i think the fear is that with healthcare cost continuing to rise in the new mandates and the taxes that are put on by obamacare, you're going to have more and more businesses who will be a washing their hands of healthcare. host: don in mexico independent caller. you're on the air with frank donatelli of gopac.
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caller: good morning. mr.donatelli. as an independent, i find your comments insulting. i find them insulting because you should know that the affordable care act actually extends the life of medicare. second point, you should also know that you said we've had four years of 8% unemployment. the last number that came in was 7.8%. you should know that. i am disappointed as an independent who wants to make rational judgment and you present fact that are incontract. it -- inaccurate, it is so disappointing. host: what's your response? guest: only in obama world we could have unemployment 8% in four years. all of sudden last month the
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unemployment rate drops 7.8% and people start cheering that. look, i'm glad unemployment is going down. don't get me wrong. does that excuse the last four years of terrible economic policies and the fact that unemployment has been unacceptably high? does that excuse that? more importantly, do we have any expectation, i would ask the gentleman this, you're an independent, do you really have any expectation if this president is reelected the economy is finally going to begin to create jobs to bring this unemployment number not down to 7.8% but really down so that especially young people can begin to find jobs? i don't think so. host: frank donatelli, we will love it there. coming up next, we will be speaking with mother jones david corn. he's out with a new book "47% uncovering the romney video.
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". later we will talk to emily ethridge. she has the story about tackling medicare. first, let's check back in julie sobel of national journal and update on the senate race in arizona. >> this is a race most people have not been paying attention to until recently. it was assumed a republican will hold the seat. congressman jeff flake is a republican in the race. recently polls showing a tied race. people are tuning in realizing that arizona could be a close senate race.
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carmona is a great recruit for democrat. he served under george w. bush. it's pretty hard for republicans to paint him with the partisan brush that they want to. basically, the argument is that he was recruited by obama and that he'll vote with the democrats which in arizona, it's a state where the fundamentals are republicans and that's kind of going to be the argument against carmona probably throughout this race. host: what should viewers be watching for tonight? >> you definitely going to see that obama called carmona personally to recruit him to run and that he is obama's man in arizona from flake. you'll also probably see carmona wanting to talk about immigration. flake, he used to support comprehensive immigration reform, now he does not anymore.
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carmona has been pushing that issue, doing a lot of latino outreach and talking about his support for comprehensive immigration reform. and kind of referencing george bush and how he respected his efforts on that front. medicare will probably come up. flake has been painting carmona as supportive of the president's healthcare bill. carmona is sort of said that both sides got certain things wrong when it comes to healthcare. he wouldn't vote for repeal but there are things that need to change and he has hit flake on support for the ryan budget. so, basically you'll see medicare come out, you'll see immigration come up and you'll probably see flake working to paint carmona has a rubber stamp for obama and carmona touting his independence and bipartisan. host: the former president bill
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clinton will be campaigning today in arizona for carmona. what will be the impact of that? guest: carmona bringing in the big guns. this is a state obama is not expected to win the presidential race clearly. he would not come to arizona to as a surrogate for carmona. he's not popular enough there but bill clinton is popular enough. this is a kind of place where clinton can be helpful. he's done the same thing for joe donald in indiana. host: what about republicans? high profile republicans for jeff flake? senator john mccain and others? guest: mccain supports flake. kyl competing, supports him. he basically have the support of the entire republican establishment. the club for growth supported him. his big thing is being
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anti-earmark and he's been anti-earmark for a very long time. the club for growth supported him in the primary. the club also poured money into the state too. the democrats kind of went in first on the advertising and now republicans have responded. the nrsc is up and the club for growth is up. flake has a lot of high profile support as well. host: all right, julie sobel with the national journal. last coverage of that debate tonight 8:00 p.m. eastern time on c-span. representative jeff flake trying to get the seat left by current senator jon kyl and richard carmona the democrat in that race. we're joined now by david corn, of course mother jones and out with a new ebook that 47% video of the word spoken by governor mitt romney at a
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fundraiser. the governor was asked about it yesterday when he was on cnn. i want to show a little bit of that and get your reaction what he's saying now about this video. [video clip] what i'm saying, words came out what's not what i meant. what i mean people understand that if i'm president, i'll be president for 100% of the people. my whole campaign is about helping the middle class have rising income and more jobs and helping get people out of poverty into the middle class. that's what this campaign is about. the wealthy are doing fine right thousand. they'll do fine most likely regardless of who's elected president. it's the middle class that's having a hard time under president obama. my campaign is about 100% of the american people. so describes what was stated in the paper is not referring to what kind of president i'd be or who i will be fighting for and instead talking about politics. it didn't come out the way i
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manipulate it. host: your reaction. guest: the great thing about the 47% story is nobody wants to view it through my filter my analysis, yours or even mitt romney's. you can watch the video. when i watch it and i watched it the first time, my jaw dropped. i was stunned at what i interpreted to be a tremendous amount of disdained being expressed by a man who wanted to be president for half the country. he literally said 47% of the country will not take personal responsibility for their lives. he's tried to spin it since then say he was talking about ideology and about policy issues or about politics. i can't get people who don't pay income taxes to vote for me out of the basis of low income taxes. all of those statements after the fact, have some merit in and
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of themselves. but they don't reflect of what he actually said at that private fundraiser. he said these people believe they are entitled to food and healthcare and they want to live off others. the most damning line, they won't take personal responsibility for their lives. if you watched the tape, i saw a man -- man speaking if full sentences. it was spoken with a lot more passion and conviction that you often don't see in mitt romney and he was addressing the question. the question was basically, how can you convince people to get off the dome and take responsibility for their lives in the two months you have in the general election? he answered the question quite
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completely. but again, my original point, you don't have to take my word for that. host: when the vote was first released by mother jones, the entire video was not released. why wasn't the entire thing released? guest: that entire answer was released. we did what any journalist does. when you go cover a presidential speech or candidate speech, "new york times" doesn't put the whole speech on the front page and cnn and msnbc and fox don't broadcast the whole speech. you find things you think are newsworthy. you plead guilty finding we felt was newsworthy in the video and putting that out first. there was a bunch of clip and there were five clip and other things reported in my original story that i thought was newsworthy. and second day we focused on foreign policy things. we broke the story 4:00 on a
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monday afternoon with 47% remarks and other remarks. if you just elect me, the economy will get better just because i'm elected. things we felt were interesting. tuesday morning, we put out his statement about middle east conflict which he said things in private. they contradict what he said publicly about support for two state solution. basically, tuesday afternoon, we put out everything and reported another journalist they thought was newsworthy. we could have held on it for days and put out stories. we decided not to. we decided it was such interest to people and we let other people decide what they think is important. it was our scoop and we managed it that way. it was certainly in keeping with the conventional traditions of journalism. host: david corn, washington bureau chief of the mother jones. you're out with a new ebook
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about this. 47% uncovering the romney video. how do people read this? guest: first they have to get it. it's an ebook. host: where do they go? guest: you can go to amazon if you're kindle readers. you can go to ibook. my kids were pleased, it was right next to j.k. rawlings new book. for anybody that read with a tablet or phone or kindle or device like that, they know where to go and available everywhere. it's 99 cents. it's not a full length book. it's a short book and a very long section of a book. it's part of what publishers trying to do experimenting with new forms of books and new forms of dissemination. i was happy to see it shoot up to the top of number one in the elections category and amazon yesterday. it's basically a narrative about
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how i came to find the video and put into context the campaign and why i think it resonated and how it reinforced a narrative that the obama campaign spent months negotiating and how i think it actually forced romney's pivot to the middle. i don't know if he's ever going to do it but perhaps sooner than he intended to. host: did you find the video? did you uncover or was it given to you? guest: kind of all three. what happened was that it's a great lesson for journalism students. earlier in the summer i had series of stories about romney's investment in bain capital including a campaign called global tech. it was a chinese company with
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manufacturing. when there was a debate about outsourcing and job creation, it a piece of evidence in that debate because romney one of his bain affiliates invested tens of millions of dollars in this outsourcing betting back in the late 1990s. in the course of doing that and doing a series of other stories, i came into contact named james carter. he is grandson of jimmy carter. he's a freelance research guy and he found some s.e.c. documents about bain that were interesting. he sent them to me. i get tips and leads like this all the time. the first thing you do, you go and look at the document itself. if it's good it's good and if it's not it's not. sort of batting back and forth
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with ideas. in the middle of all that, came across a video bumping around the internet for a couple months of romney seemingly speaking to a group of people about a trip to china to buy a factory that he thought, i agreed probably related to this company i written about global tech. he said, maybe there's more on the tape that describes more completely what he was doing and what he was speaking to achieve with these investments. i say let's try to find the person who put up the tape who done in anonymously. he said you want me to try to do that for you. i said yes, please. couple days, he found the person anonymously. he never got the true identity of this person. he said david corn done these series of articles and the person was familiar already with those articles. the person agreed and james was
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go between to putus together. i did what journalist do in these situations develop a relationship of trust and comfort. obviously he doesn't want to put it out and wanted to remain anonymous. ultimately, persuaded the person to share with me the video and we talked about how to use it. i got to see it and realized how big it might be. it was a combination of things. really for journalism students out there, the interesting thing it really came about because these other stories that gotten some attention but weren't gang busters. because he cared about the china thing more than anything else, had seen those stories and that was one reason why this person was willing to work with me. host: is there more to come from you and mother jones? guest: we're always working on things. i have a different type of video we maybe putting up tomorrow.
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host: can you tell us more? guest: i can't tell you more fiscal it's fact checked. host: will it rock the 2012 election? guest: it won't be as beg. we've gotten a leads and tips. if anybody have anything out, please feel free to send them to me at motherjones.com. we're still looking. we've gotten lot of leads and some are pretty outrageous and we haven't been able to make headway at all and just phony material. ho: you say in your title that this romney video that rocked the 2012 election, did it when he sigh that the poll -- see when we see polls tighten? guest: there's no doubt that mitt romney took a tremendous hit from the video and as you
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can see, as you showed, he still has to talk about it. we live in an era where the news cycles, can be measured almost nano second. what happened tuesday by the sunday shows, really old. things don't sort of stick around that long. what happened at the first debate with romney and the president will be a clip somewhat what happens thursday and what happens next tuesday when they meet again. a week or two of a shelf life for any story think is extraordinary. the fact that we're so time limit for 47% remarks, shows the impact it's had. i also thk the most appreciate thing -- precious thing for any presidential campaign, it's not necessarily money, it's time.
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mitt romney had to spend two weeks dealing with this issue. while he had a very good debate showing and that seems to have an impact in the polls initially here, may be he will be further ahead now had he actually spent those two weeks doing what he intended to do rather than playing defense. i do know that focus groups, both romney campaign ran and the obama campaign ran showed these remarks really alienated independent voters and even weak republicans. which indicates to me that this comes up again in the debate and advertising, it will remind people. they forgot about it or responding to the debate. host: let's go to phone calls.
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barb, democratic caller you're on the air. caller: i would like to say that romney expressed his real feeling about the 47%. it cannot be ignored. also understand that he signed grover norquist pledge. if he did that, he cannot represent 100% of the population because if you say that you're going to ignore the situation that the country is in, you cannot say that you unequivocally ignore taxes and to get income to support the country. with that, he could not represent me and the middle
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class and or poor people. host: we'll leave it there. john in north carolina, tweets in this though. the 53% are not in the least offended by the comment which was by and large true. guest: everyone has their right to their opinion here. the poll showed that actually, particularly independents, really took exception to the remark. for this remark included people who are working hard, who have to use food stamps as a stopgap measure. people on medicare and pell grant. lot of them vote republicans. it wasn't just talking about -- when you talk about these people, you're not just talking about moochers and loafers.
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i had a whom say i'm making $12,000 a year and i'm on food stamps and i'm telling governor romney, i don't feel like i'm entitled but i need it. in talking about taxes too as the caller mentioned, we heard mitt romney say with wolf blitzer is that the wealthy are doing fine and i i don't care about the wealthy. the question is why do you want to lower their tax rate 20%? he's saying that's not his plan? host going back and forth and obama campaign is trying to making a campaign issue out of
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it. if the wealthy is doing fine do who bowles-simpson says. he keeps talking of bowles-simpson every chance he has, which had does not slash government spending immediately. and it raise taxes on the wealthy a little bit to close that gap. the ryan budget would have, which he endorsed, mitt romney endorsed and put ryan on the ticket, would have tremendously slashing effect in government spending and social programs. it cuts taxes further. beyond the bush tax cuts for the wealthy. i think there's still a lot of back and forth flip-flopping whatever you want to call it strategic ambiguity what mitt romney is saying. host: let's go to stamford, connecticut, bob you're up next.
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caller: good morning. i'm an informed voter and i spent 30 plus years in the consulting industry and i don't know how to create jobs and people would have you believe is possible. there's a number of factors that led to the current condition and i don't hear anybody talking about what's going to be done to alleviate those factors. going to give you a couple examples. one is the banks. the availability of money. two, is the confidence in wall street. so many got burned, very few people private investors, want to take chance on investing money. three oil, the war in iraq, restricted the flow out of one of the major producers when congress petitioned for that oil around the world which was increasing at a dramatic rate. finally, new industries, previously in all of the
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recoveries there were always some industry that was in the vanguard. either telephone, high-tech resolution. we had the auto industry. it was always some industry there that was picking up the slack for the rest of the failing economy. i don't hear anybody talking about what they will do to restore confidence in wall street by holding certain people accountable. what they will do to ensure money is available in investment industry, what they've going to do to alleviate the condition in the oil. i don't hear anybody talking about these things. guest: i think those are all great issue that's you raise. we can spend an hour just going through some of those. i think, if you look at some of the things, the president has said and maybe he hasn't reached
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you yet, some of these fit into his message. for instance, he says, he passed wall street reform. mitt romney sort of says, he will repeal it. one reason you pass reform is to create a set of rules to encourage confidence again particularly amongst investors who indeed don't want to get burned and they don't want to become part of the shenanigans that came up in the 1990s under the bush-cheney years. the way to do that is to tighten the rules of the road. elizabeth warren who's running for senate against scott brown in massachusetts, talks very convincingly about this. if you have better rules at wall street, you would have more investment and more capital and it will help the economy that way. in terms of industries of the future, there are two mitt romney and barack obama seem to have two competing view.
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mitt romney view is, let the markets work it out and they'll figure out whatever comes next. barack obama talks repeatedly about the need to have investments, government investments that spur innovation. if you look at something like the internet, if you look at the transcontinental railroad, started by lincoln during the civil war is a way to create a infrastructure that would lead to greater commerce and greater prosperity for private enterprise. barack obama has a view that listen, with government funds, we get there jointly and you try to see certain areas. which is what happens happening in china and europe in terms of green jobs and solar jobs, the government is investing tremendously in this stuff and they are pulling ahead of us. they may not money winners but
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they are obviously energy winners of the future. the president is trying to address some of your concerns and governor romney is talking about them in a different way but often gets lost in the shuffle. host: on our facebook page, we listed questions and comments for you last night. there's over 140 comments on there. here's one from cathy. mr.corn between part one and part two of the full 47%. were the tapes selectively edited? guest: , no, i talked about this and i explained this in the ebook. what happened was the file came to us in two parts. part one and part two. the source said that well, recording the fundraiser, the device the source was using timed out. the source doesn't exactly know why. maybe it just timed out and as
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soon as the source noticed that, the device was turned back on and the source estimates one to two minute or maybe even less was not captured. we put it out a we put the whole tape filed exactly as we received it. no editing and none of that. to me it's kind of funny, there have been some conservatives made the claim there's two important missing minutes. as if that would have any bearing on the remarks -- we have 7 minutes of remarks here. in those minutes, did he say i'm just kidding about the other stuff? he never came out and said more importantly, you've heard mitt romney try to explain this about ten times now. he's never said those remarks are taken out of context.
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i then said this when i meant that. we put out very long sound bites. longer than you get on most network news show. to show as much of a context we can show. i think this is a red hairing that even the romney campaign hasn't thrown on the table. host: what can you tell us about the source of this video? guest: really not much. all i've been able to say that the person who did not go to the fundraiser as part of a political hit job. they weren't realizing they will be in a room with a presidential candidate but something interesting might happen or might be captured but didn't go with the intent of an opposition researcher would. host: were they invited to the fundraiser? guest: that's really all i can say about this person who still
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wants to remain anonymous. the back and forth that he with the person, i described in the book and afterwards on my twitter feed, i'll put up links at the david corn d.c. on twitter so people can look for themselves. believe me, i really wish i could say more about this person. a lot of people want to know obviously who it is. many have thanked the person and others curse him. host: we'll go to mike orange park, florida, who's a republican. caller: thank you for taking my call. first of all david this must be quite exciting for you. this is probably the first tv show i've seen other than msnbc. in regards to your remark about the chopped up tape, we pretty much know that your story doesn't wash because you can look at the entire tape that you put up there with a chopped out part that you left out of it.
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guest: sir, you just accused me of lying. i did not chop anything out of the tape. if you're going to accuse me of doing that, there's really no need to further conversation. caller: okay, let me restate my position then. whoever provided you the tape if they say it timed out and they jostled it and restarted it, then please explain to the audience when i'm done, because i got a couple other comments, when i'm done, why that device stays exactly in the same place for the entire tape? now you can answer that later. host: let's -- guest: i told you what the source says. actually i spent a lot of time talking to the source. and i believe the source and if it timed out, you just pushed a button on the device. it starts up again. again, to me my question to you
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is, if there's missing moments there, so what. what do you think mitt romney said? do you think he said i was kidding about that? caller: let me respond to what i think. i think what he was saying, which is what most americans believe is that there are a lot of people and i see them everyday, i see them in the grocery store. i engage with them everyday that are receiving some kind of government assistance. those people don't need to have that government assistance. we drive a 1992 camry and i see them drive out in a 2012 suv as they leave a parking lot. those people are taking away from the people that really need it. i do have one other question for you and for the show host.
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.... guest: he is said 47% of
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americans will not take personal responsibility for their own lives, and i don't know how anybody can spin that into anything but what it is. host: alicia. caller: i am humbled. david corn, a treasure. love your magazine. guest: thank you. caller: i thought that he would be out of the race, no chance left. and the middle class and jobs, in romney's views -- he says he wants to grow jobs, and he says that the rich are going to use the money to make more jobs. i say that his actions should speak louder than his words. his fortune came on the backs of workers of the united states.
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take companies, sell them off, fire workers, moved jobs out of the country. while he is moving all these jobs out of the country and building up his fortune, he might as well move is money offshore, too, because that way he does not have to pay taxes on it. i don't know how someone with that kind of record can say that he is going to be creating jobs or that anyone in the upper class -- no, we don't want to tax them because they're the ones that create the jobs. i don't know how many jobs he created, but i know that he ended a lot of jobs -- host: ok, we will end it there and have david korn respond. guest: you made obama's case against mitt romney but at bain
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interested in maximizing wealth for investors. sometimes the company's improved and got better, sometimes and they did not, but bain capital usually found a way to make money one way or the other. i put up a video a couple of days after the 47% of video in which she described bain -- he described bain and the idea was to harvest the company's bid that is what private equity guys do. remember, newt gingrich called it vulture capitalism. it is not looking at a company as a member of a community that creates jobs and is a source of wealth and the people who work there. it is looking at a company and saying, how can we benefit because the company is undervalued, as potential that we don't realize, and how can we increase the potential and make money and take off? it is a different view, and i think the president had a good
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response to that in june, july, when they were arguing about bain. they said, listen, when you are president of the united states, your job has to be bigger than maximizing profits for investors. i think mitt romney is having a difficult time applying his past experience to the larger job of leading the nation and growing an economy from the public interest. host: we are talking with david corn. has out with a new e-book about the 47% video. my producer reminded me that the previous caller who says he wants equal time, that we are having tucker carlso alln on the show next week, daily caller,
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and he was the one who talked about the 1997 video with sean hannity. guest: of course, the difference with that video, that was in the public record, no surprise. the president knew there were chemistry with the mitt romney video, nobody had seen him -- the president knew there were cameras. with the mitt romney the oh, nobody had seen him like this. so the equivalence, i have to object. host: ok. linda, good morning. caller: thank you for taking my call. oh, i have so much to talk to you about, mr. corn. the person who made this video and refuses to give his identity is a coward. he throws a rock and heights his hand. -- hides his hand. you are supporting him, it is your agenda.
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and the reason this is not hurting me is because it is true. i have a brother who has never worked a day in his life to the government has supported him, built him house, paid all his medical bills. all five children are on the government. he figures his job as a parent is that his children can get on welfare, and that is a fact. the reason this video did not hurt romney is because it is a true. there are people who are gaming the system. guest: to begin with, under welfare reform that newt gingrich and clinton and others tout, you announce a bus to be on welfare as a child and when you become 18 and -- why not supposed to be on welfare as a child and when you become a key and not work. i don't understand your brother's situation. it does not comport with the
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policy as described these days. mitt romney is free to say that there are people who are getting the system. he did not say that. he said that anybody was on entitlements, anybody on a telegram, trying to go to college about themselves -- anybody on a pell grant, trying to go to college to better themselves, anybody on food stamps, people on medicare, medicaid -- i don't know if you use any of those -- that they are all part of the emerging -- mooching society. people are free to say that we should get rid of the social safety net and not have these programs. we can have that debate in this country. that is a fine of debate to have. but mitt romney looked all of these people together, and your brother, who is irresponsible, with somebody who is on veterans' assistance. that is where a lot of people took offense.
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host: the caller implied you have an agenda. guest: well, you can look at what i've done over the years, and i am critical of the democrats as well. i do work for "mother jones," a progressive magazine. if you go to motherjones.com, you will see that we spend a lot of our time doing investigative reporting with a tremendous amount of fact checking and a real loyalty to accuracy. people can call me names if it makes them feel better, but the issue is what are the facts that we bring to bear and whether a it is true or not. you have a hard time taking
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issue with the video of a candidate saying something. host: of video will be posted under website tomorrow. can you tell what time -- guest: there are fact checking issues and we're trying to nail down some things. i hope it will be up tomorrow. it involves mitt romney -- that is all i should say at this point. if i say it will be up tomorrow, people say, "you promised something." it is not from a private fundraiser. we put up every second we have been nothing from that fundraiser that i know of that is not on the public record. host: don, democratic caller. caller: yes, hello. mr. corn, i think that during the debate it was misinterpreted by a lot of people, obama's reaction. i think he said the $5 trillion
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deficit -- excuse me, tax cut -- to governor romney on purpose. i think that he waited for him misguided, of thhis the changes he was going to make, and then after it was all over, he thought it was going to be out in the open, he ended up making a bunch of commercials about big bird because it was the only truth of that came out of mitt romney's mouth. i would like to say in answer to that after you answer me. guest: the people who worked on the obama campaign were not happy by the president's performance. it wasn't as if this was a grand strategic act on his part, that he would act diffident, look down a lot, not challenge romney
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directly or indirectly sufficiently on these big issues, and act more or less in a lackluster fashion. they were on a conference call before the debate was over trying to figure out, ok, how do we make the best out of this situation. and it may be that the president will indeed do that. in politics, it is always difficult to extrapolate from any given point. that moment, that night, i don't think it was a good night for the president. i think it was a good night for mitt romney. i think he came across with a certain amount of a force and vigor. the focus group showed that it was in his favor, although not as much as the pundits on the cable-tv and newspapers and news shows said it was. all that said, the first debate won't be as important as the second debate, which won't be as important as the third debate.
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there is plenty of time for the president to come out with a different approach, plenty of time for mitt romney to revert back to the not-great candidate he was before the night of the debate. host: carol in colorado, republican. caller: yes, mr. corn. thank you for taking my call. i will only be on for a few moments and you of the rest of the show, and if you could not interrupt me, please, because it takes away from my time did you can answer me afterwards, if you would, please. first of all, we are continuing to beat a dead horse. the curtain has been pulled back on the debate the other week, and everybody knows the president now. if he cannot go toe to toe with mitt romney and mr. lehrer, how
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will he go toe to toe with putin. he will bow, that is what he will do. i'm really sick of this 47%, which mitt has already addressed. he said he was not that great a statement that point, we all don't make our points the best way. i am probably not going to do it right now because i'm kind of nervous. but you can say things that really have a truce in the base of eight pit most americans out there think that what he said in that tape, there is a trick to it. we need to clean up -- truth to it. we need to clean up your team may not have said it the best way. -- he may not have said it the best way. guest: you are wrong if you look at the polls. most did not approve of those
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remarks. that is just a fact. obviously, you approve, and republicans are trying to find a way to make it seem like not a big deal for mitt romney, and i understand that but most americans disapproved of those remarks. as far as the president's performance in the debate, people can judge it anyway they want you think he is tough enough to destroy al qaeda leadership but not strong have to take on mitt romney, that is your prerogative. i want to say something about the caller a few back, who called the source a coward for not coming forward. there are a lot of people in our society, whistle blowers, who give us information on what goes on behind the scenes, let us know what politicians and government officials and corporate executives are doing that contradict what they tell us they are doing and the
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positions in the public. i tend to think it is an act of courage to do that. people often do that at risk to themselves. i cannot describe what happened in this instance, but my book, i call it a very gutsy move on the part of the source and i want people to know that. host: david corn, "47 percent: uncovering the romney video that rocked the 2012 election," an e- book that you can pick up on your electric meters, washington bureau chief for "mother jones." thank you. guest: thanks very much. host: up next, the candidates and medicare, part of our magazine series. first, an update from c-span radio. >> the unmanned dragon spacecraft arrived at the international space station earlier today, making the first of a dozen routine commercial
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cargo deliveries under a $1 billion deal with nasa. included in the nearly 1000 pounds of supplies is a special request from astronauts, chocolate swirl ice cream. "looks like we have tamed the dragon. we're glad she is on board with us, and banks to nasa and never went for bringing her to us, and the price -- and everyone for bringing her to us, and the ice cream." "the new york times" reports that the united states military has secretly sent a task force of 150 planners and other specialists to jordan to help the armed forces and all syrian refugees and to prepare for the possibility that syria will lose control of weapons. the mission also includes drawing up plans to insulate jordan from the upheaval in syria.
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general martin dempsey, chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, speaks today at the national press club, where reporters may ask him about this issue, among others. watch live coverage at 12:30 eastern on c-span2. a top state department security official in libya it tells a congressional investigator that he wanted more security in the weeks before the u.s. ambassador was killed in been gauzy, but the department instead wanted to, in his word, "normalise relations." an email refers to a separate document detailing 230 security incidents and the country between june 2011 and july 2012. he testifies today about the benghazi attack before the house oversight committee. watch it live on c-span. those are some of the latest headlines on c-span radio. >> look at what president obama did on the budget -- nothing,
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except borrow and spend. as a result of the president's abdication of leadership, as a result of seeing the most predictable economic crisis in the countries history and not fixing it, our credit rating was downgraded for the first time in our history. >> we laid out a $4 trillion debt reduction plan over the next 10 years. $4 trillion. we are already passed $1 trillion. ladies and gentlemen, these guys vote against everything. no, no, no, i really mean it. it did not like our plan -- i get that. what is your plan? >> congressman paul ryan and vice president joe biden will face off in their only debate. abc's martha raddatz moderates, and he could watch our preview at 7:00 p.m. eastern, -- you can watch our previous 7:00 p.m. eastern, followed by the debate
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at 9:00. all followed by your calls, e- mails, and tweets. follow on c-span, c-span rio, an online at c-span.org. "washington journal" continues. host: on wednesdays, during our last hour of "washington journal," we take a look at a magazine article. this is the cover story of "cq weekly." "politicians looking for a solution to medicare's woes." you talked about the debate between the president and its, and governor romney saying that president obama, you are putting money from medicare, the president saying, no, i am saving money for medicare. which is it? guest: it is of both, and that
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is what is tricky about the debates right now. both governor romney and president obama are saying "i am going to save the medicare and the other guy is going to end id." romney says he will do it through cuts, and obama says that he adopt the premium support plan, that will bring about the end of medicare. host: what is at present, doing about medicare? -- what is president obama doing about medicare? guest: a lot of it is included in the health care plans, and the reduced payments to providers and medicare plan s that president obama used to bring the rates down, and he does a lot of other things to change the program. he starts a new demonstration programs to change payment systems, trying to change the system from within. host: what is governor romney proposing? guest: governor romney and especially his vice presidential
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pick, paul ryan, a talking about the premium support plan. at some point in the future, seniors would get a check from the government with which to buy insurance. the plans would be private insurance plans the pit if they want, there is the traditional medicare choice that the government would run. the government would give you a set amount of money with which to purchase those plans, and you have a choice, competition. host: buzzword is "voucher." what does it mean by saying " voucher"? guest: supporters don't like to call it "voucher," and democrats like to call it vouchercare. you will have the benefits that
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you have to forfei -- you will not have the benefits that you had before. it is a derogatory term. host: paul ryan has put out his plan on medicare occurred what -- has put out his plan on medicare. what would you be watching for in the debate? guest: the romney plan on medicare is a little bit different than what paul ryan proposed trade when he announced paul ryan as his pick for vice president, we wondered if he would take the paul ryan plan as it is. pretty soon he said no, i will change it, this is not the paul ryan plan, this is the mitt romney plan. does paul ryan stick with his old plan or does he get on board with the ideas? host: what are the differences? guest: this $716 billion that we hear about all the time. in his budget, paul ryan assumes
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that those cuts will still happen to medicare. romney says no, i will restore those cuts to providers, and will get rid of the $716 billion. we are waiting to see if paul ryan gets on board with that or if he sticks to what he did before. host: that gets to the crux of your article, that if politicians are looking for solutions to save medicare, and you write that "the onus will be on health care providers and caregivers to restructure the cost of the payments system." how does it work now and what are people looking at to change it? guest: right now we are under the fee-for-service program. doctors and providers are reimbursed for medicare per the number of services they perform. critics don't like it because they say that all it does is reward providers for doing more services.
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that leads to unnecessary care, that leads to doctors moving you out so that they can see as many patients as possible so that they can get reimbursed as much as they can. it is not really reward quality of care, it does not reward physicians spending more time with their patients, and it is generally agreed that this is not the ideal way to pay providers and we want to change its. host: what are some ways to change it? guest: the way that obama proposed in the health-care law, fee-for-service plus, improved fee-for-service. these are things like accountable care organizations. a group of writers comes -- above providers comes together -- a group of providers comes together and they would all get paid for seeing the patient all the way through. that means you are responsible for the care you want, and you want to assure that the person
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gets the best care, and that that person does not get wrireadmitted to the hospital. you all have savings and you all share in the savings. you are motivated to let's work together, collaborate, find savings. host: governor romney -- in his plan, there are no cuts to providers? guest: there would be no direct cuts to providers. it is a lot less direct. host: is that different from paul ryan's plan? guest: it is the same as paul ryan's plan. host: now that we have laid this all-out, let's turn to our viewers. vicky is up, a democratic caller. caller: good morning. i recently retired after 45 years of being a registered nurse in a hospital, and the first 10 years in a fee-for-
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service traditional hospital. the last 35 years, the oldest not-for-profit hmo in the country, kaiser permanente. i guess i am pretty upset about the fact that with all the spin about the affordable care act, nobody is really addressing a lot of the quality initiatives that have been included. it has been kind of perpetrated as basically an insurance program, when only 25% of it deals with insurance issues. the rest of it is really quality initiatives. there are 85 listed, such as national diabetes scorecards, giving providers some incentives and some reimbursements for electronic medical records, centers of excellence for things like
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congestive heart failure, a clinical depression. so can you address some of those quality initiatives? they are long overdue. guest: you're right, there are a lot of things in the affordable fact that we don't hear as much about, and that is what obama is doing with medicare right now you are right, focusing more on electronic medical records is a big part of it. there's a lot of focus in the law on preventive care and trying to prevent things like hospital readmission, trying to keep people from getting into a hospital in the first place. there is a lot they are working not to change the way health care is delivered. the centers for medicare and medicaid services have created a new department called the center for medicare and medicaid innovation. they're the ones overseeing these demonstration programs, they are the ones testing of the new things with providers volunteering to pay for these things, saying, where can we go from here, how can we improve medicare as we continue in
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future years? everybody agrees that something needs to change about medicare. that is already getting started. host: michael in fredericksburg, virginia, independent caller and. caller: good morning, ladies. you know, i feel we can tweak medicare all we want. but until we stop the abuse of medicare, and what i mean by abuse -- we have irresponsible men and women who have no intention of getting married. they bring child after child into this world. according to the u.s. office of budget and management, it costs over $100 billion a year to take care of these women and their illegitimate offspring. it is a big burden on medicare, medicaid, every other social program -- host: old on, let's get a
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clarification. emily ethridge, medicare is for who, medicaid is for who? guest: medicare is for people 65 and older and disabled, and medicaid is on low income families. host: medicare is a topic for the next 30 minutes. "fastily ethridge's piece, running out of money." guest: the hospital insurance trust fund, the for the pace for medicare part a, hospital services, is scheduled to be insolvent in 2024. it will not be able to cover the expenditures by 2024. you hear about medicare going bacbank of pit that is not exactly what it is. before the health-care law, it
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is going to become bankrupt -- insolvent -- so easy to fall into that -- by 2016. if romney repealed the law, that would bring insolvency back to 2016. host: how do romney and ryan respond to that? guest: they say that because of competition with the increased share of private plans, giving a set amount in check to beneficiaries, that they would be able to save money over the long term. it is very hard to say exactly what the details are right now, because we don't know exactly how it works. but paul ryan's plan, these changes don't have been for happen fordon't another 10 years. he would probably still confront
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this insolvency issue in 2016, were he to become president and were he to repeal affordable health care act. it would be a big thing for him to deal with halfway through his term. host: gloria, you are next. caller: i would like to talk about the medicare voucher program that you say is a premium support. my thought on this is that the cost of health care insurance is pretty steep. it averages about $800,000 to $100,000 a month for a person to get private health insurance. if they get this out for, you are starting off in all told, -- this voucher, you are starting off in the hole, and seniors need to understand that there are no details with the romney plan, and sending you out there to purchase insurance, you are not going to find any good
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deals. host: emily ethridge? guest: that is one of the concerns we talked about in our piece, that beneficiaries are afraid of premium support. is much more direct, saying that this will change so much, that you get a set amount of money. what governor romney says is that the amount of money that would be taxed to the second cheapest plan, equal to the second cheapest plan even if he could only pay the amount the government gave you, you have two plans to choose from. the concern from opponents is that that would leave poor and sick people in this plans, it would cause trouble. host: and changing medicare, what is the response? guest: there was a poll on
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whether they want to change to a premium support system, and 70% of seniors said no, we want to keep it like it is. even if you poll voters, not just seniors, this does not pull very strongly. host: that gets to something that governor romney and paul ryan have said about any changes that they would do would not affect people on medicare now, correct? when would the changes take place? guest: the changes would take place in 10 years under paul ryan's plan. people currently getting medicare or close to getting medicare, he would get the same old medicare that you have today. those who are 55, 54, and younger, they would have to be under this new plan. you can wander why they would have that delay. maybe it is because it takes a
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long time to set up, may be it is because seniors go out and vote. host: kerry, republican. caller: i will be turning 65 in december. i think obama is the one who is destroying medicare, because many doctors, and i have talked to many people running my age who are on medicare -- they are getting to the point where they will accept medicare anymore. that is very sad. i think mr. ryan is right on target with tweaking the system, and ms. ethridge said that people who are on medicare for the next 10 years, there will be no major changes. i think that the idea of the voucher system and tweaking is the way to go. one more comment. mr. obama talks about the rich and how romney is rich. he has made it a dirty word to become rich, and he hangs with every celebrity and every rich person there is.
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as far as connections to people, i think romney has the better connection. that is all i wanted to say. host: all right, we will move on to miami, florida, independent caller bank. caller: i think of what some people are concerned about with this voucher -- i understand that health care is growing at twice that of inflation. you give somebody a voucher, a certain amount, let's say $6,000, $7,000, but over time, the cost of health care continues to rise and rise and rise. they have not given us any kind of idea of how they are going to keep up with the rising costs of health care on the particular policy. also, that particular board that under its so-called obamacare, costs and inflation and all
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those things that will address this issue is -- think that is a great idea of pit could you dispel the myth that this is a death panel, rationing of health care? guest: good point there. one is that under congressman ryan's plan, the vouchers would be tied to inflation, not health care costs. if health care costs continue to rise much quicker than inflation, it would not keep pace and seniors would have to pay more and more and more every year out of their own pocket to pay ofup. and the board you brought up, the independent payment advisory board, that is something we hear about a lot. we hav a sidebar peace to my cover story this week getting into this board and talking about what is involved. it is not a death panel -- we
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hear that in mind. there is a specific line in the statute that whatever decisions the board makes, i cannot in of rationing or cutting benefits and 8 cannot change eligibility requirements for medicare. it goes back to this idea of the providers are the ones that will see hits here. host: "medicare board still a long way off." it is not functioning yet. guest: we don't even have people nominated to be on the board. there is money appropriated, but we don't have anyone nominated to be on the board. the board only acts 10 if a certain trigger is reached, and the congressional budget office says that that will not be reached for another 10 years. host: 1 would this board make a decision? guest: it could be in the early 2020s when this board has to
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make a proposal required under the law. host: who serves on the board in the meantime? this congress say who should serve on it? guest: there is a lot of requirements a combination of providers, health-care experts, consumer advocates, people from hospitals -- academic experts in terms of health care. it might be someone who serves on the medicare advisory commission, who has experience -- host: how many people are we talking about? it sounds like a lot. guest: 15 people. you have to find someone who can check three of the boxes -- i am a consumer advocate but i also have a background in medicare. host: and it has to be triggered by economic circumstances?
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not just something set in place? guest: no, they can be monitored, they can have ideas. they don't have to make the recommendations until the trigger is reached. host: explain the trigger. guest: if medicare cost growth reaches a certain point, which is not expected to hit until at least 2022, and then they make their recommendations. host: debra in richmond, virginia, democratic caller. caller: i have two questions here. i don't understand one of the medicare- i've been on and visibility for almost 10 years now. -- medicare and disability for almost 10 years now. i don't understand how the biggest problem we have is the cost of prescription drugs. it is ridiculous.
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that has taken a lot of medicare money. second, it is not that people are getting older. the real problem is that medicare -- it does not make any sense to people who become disabled and have to wait four years to get their benefits. it does not take a dr. four years after your doctor has said that you are disabled for them to save for four years that you are not disabled. you have to deal with the inside of social security. host: ok, she talks about prescription drugs, that taking most of the money for medicare. guest: and prescription drugs is under medicare part b, and that is another thing that president obama tries to talk about is health care law. he closes the gap for
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prescription dark reimbursements. there was an area where seniors had to pay the entire cost of drugs until they reach another level on spending. he is gradually closing that gap, and seniors will get a rebate checks for prescription drugs and more money from the government. the part d plan is run by medicare but done in private insurance plans, and a lot of people who don't support the premium support idea say that we already have privatensurance and medicare, we have medicare advantage, private insurance prescription drug plans. there are not proven yet to save medicare money. why would a premium support plan be cheaper if you brought in private insurance also? guest: i don't think that "sunset" is exactly the right
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term. we had a few republican senators, with the couple bills in the last congress. one was going to change everyone in medicare to the federal employees health benefits program, which is what all members of congress have. another idea was to put everybody on private insurance after a certain point. you have people like tom coburn, lindsey graham coming up with ideas like these. we have had a lot of discussion the past few years. host: is that true? guest: i don't think that that is true. i don't know that you could really prove that the reason doctors are not seeing health care patients is because of the law. this is a different issue not related to the health care of it of you, but you hear about the doc fix, another payment problem that congress has to deal with every year. it has been going on for 10 years, even longer than that.
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it has been a problem for the past decade, well before obama's time. congress has had to deal with it every single year to stop these cuts that would happen -- it is coming out to expire at the end of this year. 27% cuts in reimbursement unless congress acts. host: is all part of this fiscal cliff debate. guest: is going to be an exciting end of the year. that is something with medicare, and you hear providers say that because of that problem, i might stop seeing medicare patients. host: republican, maria. go ahead. thanks for waiting. caller: i remember watching friday night at 11:00 by christmas, and seeing on c-span and the vote for obamacare, and was released suspect. why are -- and it was released suspect why are these guys
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hanging around to vote on this when they have not read the bill? there was such a push to get it through. and then not one republican voted for it. you had the people who did vote admitting they had not ready. -- had not read it. i thought it was suspicious, and think to know what you of the promised transparency. guest: this is a criticism you hear a lot about the bill. a lot of times even if people oppose what is in, they really oppose the process. you'll see that more and more with things like the fiscal cliff. that might be another thing we see coming through around christmas, new years, kind of end of the year it will have to happen. it with them at the process -- it was a messy process.
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there were so many variations of the bill, so many versions that people might have read. it changed slightly by the time is past and maybe they had not gone through and seen all the changes. a lot of people, even democrats who were thrilled that it went through, democratic lawmakers will regret or do regret the way it went through congress. you hear them say that from time to time. but now, is over, it is the law, the supreme court has provided as constitutional and we will go ahead and implement it. host: is that number true? 10,000 people every day? guest: i have not heard that exact number before, and i don't know that you can blame obama
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for that. host: what about the people turning 65, the age when they can get on medicare? guest: 9 now it is 48 million people receiving medicare benefits right now. you have the baby boomers getting onto medicare. that started if you years ago and that is really going to expand trade lindsey graham says that the problem with medicare is that not that we are not doing medicare right, is that your grandparents had too many children and you did not have enough. host: minnesota. independent there. caller: we don't have no ca ble. host: maurice, you are on the air. caller: is that me? .ost: yes, go ahead c
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caller: i remember on "good times," health care was bad. what is so bad about taking care of the country? the people of so much should not be worried about people receiving $300 a month. do they think that people really love living like this, that this is the way they want to conduct their lives? but when you live in a system that is so set against you, what do they really expect for these people to do? host: i will let maurice's comments stand. juanita, you are next. caller: emily, you have been great this morning. i am so happy that you have taken the time to explain this to all of us, because this has been confusing to us all. that is not my question, that is not my comment. but what i would like for you to talk about is the difference
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between pre-existing conditions and governor romney's proposed plan, which we have not seen, and the affordable care act. i am a 10-year breast cancer survivor, and i'm really, really concerned. i have insurance now. i pray to god that i don't lose it. but if something were to happen, and under these new rules, what happens with people with pre- existing conditions? guest: this is a a great question. it is something we heard about in the debate last week. you heard governor romney and president obama get into a little bit of a tussle about romney's views on pre-existing the nation's tra pre-existing -- conditions. governor romney says that under his plan, he would cover people with pre-existing conditions, but that is for people who had continuous coverage up to that point. if you lost your insurance
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coverage for a certain period of time, because of your existing condition or something else, you are unemployed, you don't have insurance for a while, you would not necessarily be covered under governor romney's plan, even if you had a pre-existing condition. under obama's plan, once it is in place in 2014, everyone with a pre-existing condition is guaranteed coverage. that is one of the center points of his law, and also why we have things like the individual requirements for insurance so that everyone can have insurance. host: how much of the affordable health care act is in place now versus 2014, 2016? guest: 2014 is what we will see the big changes. that is when the requirement takes place, that is when the state exchanges will be set up so that people can buy insurance. right now, only about 50% of the law is in place. that is coming up soon. host: any studies that have looked at the 50% and the impact
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on the economy, medicare, etc.? guest: a lot of it is so new, and when you see the studies, and they have cauveats. health insurance will continue to rise -- that is true. but the economy plays a lot in this. the law does not operate in a vacuum. host: north carolina, republican caller. caller: my biggest concern with the obamacare is the advantage plan trade with my elli -- a dvantage plan. with my illness, i have him and th -- have humana, and i pay a $50 copay for the ngo gramm, and getting rid of the advantage of plan, i would have to pay 30%
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of $30,000. i want to keep my advantage plan. host: so what is your question, mary? caller: i don't want obamacare. host: ok. emily ethridge, any comments? guest: is going back to the cuts that under the health-care law, he would reduce payments to medicare advantage plans down from where they currently are now. right now the advantage plans get paid at 107% of what traditional medicare gets paid. he will bring them more in line. that could change some benefits that private insurers offered. what it really is is bringing them so that they are more equal. host: another mary, independent caller bang. caller: good morning. the last caller, i don't mean
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to be mean-spirited, but why should i pay to subsidize her medicare advantage plan? but that is not why i call. recently, a i have a friend and her daughter got a job, but fate stepped in and she had an aneurysm. she has no insurance now. i see these things through personal situations, and when i tell people this story, especially those against obamacare, so-called obamacare, and they just look at me. they have no solution. what is the solution? i would like some people to call in and say what should we do about a case like that. they just refuse to say we have no solution to health care. host: emily ethridge, your thoughts?
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guest: i don't know how old your friend's daughter was, one of the things governor romney says, if you do away with -- a lot of people say to him that if you get rid of the health-care law, you get rid of people stay on their parents' insurance plans to -- insurance plans. he says that private insur ers will let them. he believes that this is something that private insurers can handle themselves without getting into the government. one of the key points about obama's health-care law is the idea that insurance is not tied to your employer the way it is now. you can go to the individual market without it being tied to your employer.
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guest: i mean, we're not seeing medicare and vanished plan as the drop out so far. even though some of these things will be reduced. they might change the way the offer the benefits and some of their plans. but even the $716 billion in cuts, is not all medicare and manage, not all providers -- not all medicare advantage, not all providers. are you getting a certain amount of money from medicare that is less than what you got before, or zero if you don't see medicare patients anymore? that is the decision to make. host: on our democrats' line, shane in texas. caller: thank god for c-span. i don't think i would be able to think for myself if i did not
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have c-span. most people who watch fox or cnn, you can tell did everything they say is just every iteration. thank god for c-span2 i think everybody listening right now would agree with me to even get close to an unbiased opinion on almost anything here. i watched a lot of it. i watch probably 10 to 20 hours a week. host: thanks. caller: i work in health care. i talked a lot of people about it. we are all affected by it. we know this big retirement problem for a long time, and i've been watching c-span all these years, and we have been spending money on things that other countries do not spend money on. we don't spend money on certain
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things like aircraft -- they spend money on certain things like aircraft carriers and bombers after they take care of people. the thing that is alarming is that that is what is really going to come down to, a big fight in the country between the military lobbyists and health care. we will have to decide if we can afford these $400 million f-22 's. you can take care of a lot of people for the price of one jet. the question i would like to ask -- i just want to throw that out, but the real question i want to ask is that from what i understand, obamacare, which is really just a result of wrangling that i watched on c- span one -- they went on for months. isn't not really what obama wanted. it is the results of a crazy debacle -- host: we are running out of
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time. what is your question? caller: in switzerland they implemented something just like this health care bill 18 years ago. why is there no talk about it and how well it has worked out for them? guest: i am not familiar with the swiss system, that is something that a lot of supporters hope is going to happen. as these things get into place, and the law will become more and more popular. if you do see this year that the law's popularity has gone up, especially after the supreme court upheld it as constitutional. people are starting to see the benefits take place, people are starting to see how it affects them. and maybe they didn't lose all their doctors or insurance plans the speed maybe it was not as bad as initially feared. host: mike on twitter --
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does that sound accurate? guest: 107. it was higher. 107, i think, comes from the last minute for commission report, 2011. it had been close to 120%. they've been bringing it back out of the past five, six, seven years, and obama wants to bring it down further. the extra payment will go away. host: emily ethridge wrote the cover piece for "cq weekly." a couple more phone calls. west virginia, republican line. kay,

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